Why is Self Awareness Important?

Feb 15

My goal with this post is to offer some resources and action items to be more self aware. Self Awareness helps you identify who you are and who you want to become.

Self-awareness is important for several reasons, including:

Personal growth: Self-awareness allows you to better understand yourself, including your strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies. This understanding can help you identify areas where you can grow and improve.
Better decision-making: When you are self-aware, you are more likely to make decisions that are aligned with your values, goals, and needs. This can lead to greater satisfaction and fulfillment in your personal and professional life.
Improved relationships: Self-awareness can help you better understand and empathize with others, which can lead to stronger and more meaningful relationships. It can also help you recognize and manage your own emotions, which can prevent conflict and improve communication.
Career success: Self-awareness is an important trait for career success, as it can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, as well as your professional goals and priorities. This understanding can help you make informed career decisions and communicate more effectively with colleagues and supervisors.
Mental and emotional well-being: Self-awareness can help you recognize and manage your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This can lead to greater mental and emotional well-being, as well as lower levels of stress and anxiety.

Here are some key strategies you can use to become more self aware.

Meditation to become self aware

Meditation is one of the most common ways to practice mindfulness. It involves sitting in a quiet space and focusing your attention on your breath, bodily sensations, or a particular mantra.There are many different ways to meditate, and different techniques may work better for different people. Here are a few common meditation techniques:

Mindfulness meditation: Mindfulness meditation involves focusing your attention on the present moment and observing your thoughts and emotions without judgment. You can do this by focusing on your breath, body sensations, or a specific object or mantra.
Transcendental meditation: Transcendental meditation involves repeating a specific mantra silently in your mind. The goal is to achieve a state of deep relaxation and mental tranquility.
Loving-kindness meditation: Loving-kindness meditation involves cultivating feelings of love, kindness, and compassion towards yourself and others. You can do this by visualizing people you care about and wishing them well.
Yoga: Yoga involves a combination of physical postures, breathing exercises, and meditation. It can help promote relaxation, flexibility, and overall well-being.
Body scan meditation: Body scan meditation involves paying attention to each part of your body, starting from your toes and working your way up to the top of your head. You can focus on sensations like warmth, tingling, or tension.

Your values define your “Self”

As you become more self aware, your values become a big part of defining who you are. Spend some time thinking about what's important to you and what you stand for. Understanding your values can help you make better decisions, set goals that are meaningful to you, and live a more authentic life. Values are deeply personal and can vary from individual to individual. However, I can offer some guidance on how to identify and clarify your own values.

Values are the guiding principles or standards that you use to evaluate your actions, decisions, and beliefs. They help you determine what is important to you and how you want to live your life. Here are some steps you can take to identify and clarify your own values:

Reflect on your experiences: Think about times in your life when you felt most fulfilled, proud, or at peace. What values were you living out during those times?
Identify what matters most to you: Make a list of the things that you consider to be most important in your life. These could be personal qualities, relationships, goals, or causes that you care about.
Think about your role models: Consider the people who you admire and look up to. What values do they embody that you find inspiring?
Assess your behavior: Look at the choices you've made in the past and think about the values that guided those decisions. Are there any patterns or consistencies in your behavior that suggest particular values?
Prioritize your values: Once you've identified your values, rank them in order of importance to you. This can help you make difficult decisions and set priorities in your life.

Remember that your values can evolve and change over time as you gain new experiences and perspectives. The important thing is to regularly reflect on your values and ensure that you are living a life that is consistent with them.

Self Awareness comes from knowing your Personality, take a personality test

Taking personality tests such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or the Big Five Personality Traits can help you understand your natural tendencies and preferences. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test was developed in the 1940s by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers. The test is based on the theories of Carl Jung, a Swiss psychologist who believed that people have different innate preferences and tendencies in how they perceive the world and make decisions.

The MBTI is designed to assess an individual's personality type by measuring four pairs of opposing preferences: Extraversion (E) vs. Introversion (I), Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N), Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F), and Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P). Based on these preferences, an individual can be classified into one of 16 possible personality types.

The MBTI has been widely used in a variety of settings, including education, career counseling, and personal development. It is often used to help individuals better understand themselves, their strengths, and their weaknesses, as well as to improve communication and collaboration in groups and teams.

However, the MBTI has been criticized by some researchers for lacking scientific rigor and reliability. Critics argue that the test is too simplistic and does not take into account the complexity of human personality. Some studies have also questioned the validity of the test's underlying assumptions and the accuracy of its results.

Despite these criticisms, many people continue to find the MBTI a useful tool for self-awareness and personal development. It can be a starting point for individuals to explore their personality and gain insights into their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their communication and leadership styles.